Ever since my last vacation I’ve been feeling kind of PORGIE and trying to shed a few pounds, so finding pie, cake, candy, and a muffin in the grid isn’t really helping, thank you very little!
Seriously, though, this is a fun and interesting theme of compliments (can we call them that these days?) based on food items. And I love the grid art, too, which seems to be a cute smiley face with hands out saying “How do you like this one?” How could I HATESON a puzzle while staring at that little guy? Unpossible.
There’s an edible bonus at 1A - PECAN (Ingredient in many a sandie cookie), and a fakeout at 32A: Sticky roll (TAPE). And after all that sweet stuff you’ll have to go see the DENTIST!
I liked the spirit of the cluing today quite a bit. There’s cleverness at 1D: Apt surname for a close-up magician? (PALMER), groan-worthy punning at 34D: What MoMA knows best? (ART), and puzzle/trivia-geek camaraderie at 10D: Ending of four state capitals [Can you name them all?] (CITY) (Jefferson, Salt Lake, Oklahoma, & Carson). And I liked getting caught up on the all the modern lingo with BOUGIE (Concerned with wealth, possessions and respectability, in modern lingo), LATINX (Gender-neutral neologism added to Merriam-Webster in 2018), and GAYMER (Portmanteau coinage for a queer-identified e-sports player, say).
Overall, a tasty Wednesday grid. Now it's time to GINUP!
- Horace
p.s. Frannie will be back tomorrow, I'm just filling in for a day.
p.p.s. We just learned that the A.C.P.T. has been cancelled. See the official site for Will Shortz's message. We're sorry to hear it, but we completely understand.
10:35
ReplyDeleteHIYA! This one went along pretty quickly since I figured out the theme early on. Nothing too BLAH in here, but there were two squares that gave me a little bit of trouble: the crosses at PALMER/MAI and BOUGIE/UTEP. I've heard, of course, of UTEP, being a regular crossword solver, but never heard BOUGIE said. I certainly have never heard of singer Ella MAI, but PALMER was the only reasonable guess for the down. I'd also never heard of Wynonna EARP, but having freshly viewed the Costner movie "Wyatt Earp" from a couple of decades ago, the name was fresh in my mind. The 3:10 running time seemed a bit long, IMO, but there were quite a few big-name STARS in it, at least.